The architecture of preserving memories: 'an odyssey of spice'
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Date
2020-11
Authors
Van der Watt, Jaco
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
University of the Free State
Abstract
The Bo-Kaap has been a hub for cultural celebration for the people of the Cape Malay community over time. The urban fabric of the Bo-Kaap has become an exhibition for outsiders to view the insiders as objects living within a functionalist paradigm. This area has become more and more of a social ''exuberant experience for tourists to have an experiential journey denoted to the daily lives of the insiders. With the notion of globalization, the Bo-Kaap runs the risk of becoming a stagnant community within an ever-growing society and world. Extracting the outsiders into a common experiential node to subsequently preserve the memories and rituals of the insiders through architectural intervention will be the ultimate goal of this dissertation. This dissertation will explore the notion of preserving elements of a cultural experience by pursuing a structuralist paradigm in architectural poiesis. The project questions how architecture could surpass the stagnation of an area, through public intervention, and instil innovative incremental growth to expand cultural hardware, for years to come. Consequently, aligning the incremental development of the Bo-Kaap with an evolving world's constructs; the preservation of the urban fragment's history will be impending. Proposing a Bo-Kaap Cultural Centre, in the form of a spice market, will provide a platform for outsiders to experience culture in a vacuum, insiders to have a shrine of reminiscence and an intervention exploring the possibility of structuralist living. Furthermore, this would ensue the preservation of the community in terms of tourism and history by becoming an existential foothold of Cape Malay living. The investigation will relate culture and history to the built environment and eventually discover ways of harmoniously merging history with the inevitable growth of society, in whichever capacity it may be presented on the forefront. Ultimately, exploring new theoretical paradigms for urban living; a pre-emptive paradigm becomes a necessity to support the incremental development of urbanism with creativity and innovation - 'a new approach in sustainable evolution that forbears cultural and creative stagnation ...’
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Keywords
Dissertation (M.Arch. (Architecture))--University of the Free State, 2020, Architecture -- Memories preservation, Architecture design -- Cultural experience, Architecture -- Bo-Kaap Cultural Centre